New York Southeast Asia Network Receives Major New Funding from the Luce Foundation

We are pleased to announce that the New York Southeast Asia Network (NYSEAN), which was established in 2015 to serve as a center for the academic study of Southeast Asia in New York City, has recently received a major grant from the Luce Foundation.

The network is a collaboration that was forged by four co-founders: Duncan McCargo (a political science professor who divides his time between Columbia University and the University of Leeds), Ann Marie Murphy (associate professor at Seton Hall University and Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute), John Gershman (professor at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service) and Margaret Scott (adjunct associate professor at Wagner and journalist writing mostly on Indonesia, frequently contributing to The New York Review of Books).

With an initial 2015 seed grant from the Luce Foundation, NYSEAN has tried to create a networked area studies center for the twenty-first century, one based on sharing ideas and leveraging connections. The Network now has eleven partners (not all of which are universities) and several hundred members who receive a weekly e-newsletter. NYSEAN puts on more than 60 Southeast-Asia related events a year, including an annual Thailand Update conference and regular brownbag talks on recent political and socio-economic developments in the region – as well as literary and arts programs.

Luce Foundation has just given NYSEAN a further three year (2018-2020) grant of $475,000 to consolidate the network, boost levels of activity, and to provide financial support for partners to initiate conferences and other activities. NYSEAN will soon hire its first half-time staff coordinator, and will be further developing its website to provide greater resources for those interested in researching and teaching about the region. Co-Founder Duncan McCargo said: “This wonderful grant from Luce is a huge vote of confidence in what NYSEAN has accomplished to date, and will help us find new ways of promoting the study of Southeast Asia, at a time when more area-specific knowledge is urgently needed, yet its value is being widely questioned.”

NYSEAN is administratively based at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute, in partnership with NYU, Seton Hall, Cornell, Long Island and Yale universities, as well as American Jewish World Service, Asian American Writers Workshop, Asia Society, Carnegie Council, and New Books in Southeast Asian Studies. The Network welcomes new members and partners: please contact them via their website nysean.org